Why Transcend Invested In Cosmic Lounge

Transcend is thrilled to announce that we have led the oversubscribed Seed round in Cosmic Lounge, a mobile game studio that is dramatically innovating in the massively important free-to-play puzzle game category.

Founded by veteran developers with a proven track record of global success – including work on segment-defining hits like Candy Crush and Best Fiends – Cosmic Lounge is pioneering an electrifying new approach to puzzle game design. The team is leveraging proprietary AI tools and technologies that will transform the way puzzle games are created, enabling them to produce evergreen content that can identify and capture new audiences with speed and precision.

A TEAM THAT HAS WORKED TOGETHER BEFORE

Cosmic Lounge was founded in 2022, shortly after Playtika closed Seriously, the studio behind Best Fiends. CTO Tommi Kiviniemi co-founded Seriously, and earlier founded Rocket Pack, which Disney acquired. Peter Tokoi ran studio operations at Seriously, and VP of design Simo Rajamäki spent seven years there. CEO Tomi Huttula held senior roles at Nokia, Kabam and EA before leading tech product at King. The team works from Helsinki, the heart of the Nordic mobile game scene.

“We are profoundly impressed with Cosmic Lounge’s vision to fuse their deep puzzle game domain expertise with a proprietary AI-enhanced game engine,” said Brett Krause of Transcend. “We’re confident they have the tools to power original game design and content creation with rapid iteration, and that they will produce the next blockbuster puzzle game franchise.”

Despite the explosive growth in terms of downloads and revenue of mobile puzzle games over the last decade – the segment is one of the biggest genres in gaming – Transcend has patiently shied away from this ‘red ocean’ category, due to intense competition and high barriers to entry. However, Cosmic Lounge’s irresistible combination of experience, imagination, and innovative technology makes them a rare and exciting standout, and we believe they’re equipped to become a trailblazer in the space.

“We wanted to found a company which applies new ways of game making,” said Cosmic Lounge cofounder Tomi Huttula. “One of the key priorities for us is to be able to efficiently and extensively evaluate the product-market fit throughout the whole development process, enabling us to produce games our target audiences really love to play.”

“When going through our approach and solutions with the Transcend team, we were excited to find a partner who shares a similar passion for creating the next game changers in our industry.”

A PROPRIETARY AI DEVELOPMENT STACK

The studio’s Puzzle Engine puts Huttula’s idea into practice. Designers can build and test new mechanics and visuals without waiting on engineering, and turn them into playable prototypes for concept testing. The same tools handle AI-assisted content creation, level testing and content deployment, which matters in a genre where games live or die on a steady stream of new levels and live events.

My partners and I are excited to welcome Cosmic Lounge to the Transcend portfolio and very much look forward to working alongside the team as they delight players for years to come. You might consider doing so as well - they are hiring!

UPDATE · SINCE WE INVESTED

JUL 2024   Cosmic Lounge’s Puzzle Engine is named a finalist for Best AI Games Tech at the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards. PocketGamer.biz

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ABOUT BRETT KRAUSE

Brett is Managing Director of Transcend and a proven executive leader in the areas of venture investing, games, finance, and banking. Following a 20-year banking career that included roles as President of JPMorgan China and CEO of Citi Vietnam, Brett spent 4.5 years as Chief Investment Officer at FunPlus, a world-class, independent game developer and publisher, and founder of FPX, one of the world's most successful esports organizations. Brett speaks Mandarin, Japanese, and French. He is currently based in Zug, Switzerland.

ABOUT TRANSCEND

Transcend is a top quartile early-stage venture firm that backs AI-native entrepreneurs building the next generation of interactive entertainment. In a $263B global industry where AI is rewriting the economics, we partner with the founders leading that shift from pre-seed through Series A. Founded in 2020 by veterans with 70+ years of operator experience and $10B+ in lifetime revenue. Learn more at transcend.fund and follow us on LinkedIn.